Posted
by
timothy
on Friday June 03, 2011 @07:12AM
from the cisco-kids dept.

djmurdoch writes "The Vancouver Sun reports that 'The giant computer company Cisco and US prosecutors deceived Canadian authorities and courts in a massive abuse of process to have a former executive thrown in jail, says a B.C. Supreme Court judge.' Peter Adelkeye was arrested last year as he was testifying in a special hearing in Vancouver. It turns out he was there because US authorities would not grant him permission to enter the US to testify in a civil case between him and Cisco. The Canadian judge said that almost nothing in the US Attorney's letter was true, and has overturned his extradition order. Slashdot discussed this case in April."

En route to Switzerland, Adelkeye was caught molesting a hotel maid and was turned in by several Good Samaritans. "He just looked suspicious," commented a white man with shoe polish on his face. "Yeah, we saw him do it. Molesting that horse. I mean maid," quipped a gentleman with large glasses, puffy eyebrows and elongated nose.

Adelkeye is expected to please guilty and spend life in prison. Barack Obama, who received a personal plea from Peter last year, stated that "those Canadians and their judges need to be held accountable for Adelkeye's release."

maybe you should have marked this idiocy or sarcasm or something, because it's about as offtopic as it gets. It's pretty disgusting to see such prosecutorial misconduct in the US, and yet the prosecutors aren't even getting a slap on the wrist.

It is conspiratorial. It projects a similar fate as Jullian Assange or Dominique Strauss-Kahn encountered, which some believe to be lies perpetrated by those in the government. This story doesn't make the government sound like they're above such things.

people who spend their lives seeing a conspiracy around every corner are pretty sad individuals to me. we are all familiar with the folly of being too trusting, too gullible, too prone to believe everything you hear. to me, even more tragic are those who trust nothing they hear, who would rather believe the little voice in their head spinning more and more fanciful stories. that such a voice is superior to saying "you know, maybe osama bin laden brought down the world trade center and not a vast government

That is one of the dumbest comments I have ever seen on/., when governments and corporations consistently obfuscate, spin, propagandize and outright lie it is not a, "weak feeble mind" that doesn't trust the liars. For example you cherry pick the most ridiculous sounding theories and try to paint everyone with the same brush, that is part of the propaganda ploy to silence all who don't buy the "party line".

The reality is that intelligent people question the facts when they don't add up and learn from exper

Certainly there are both extremes, as there are extremes at both ends of any spectrum. Notice though how you denigrate one of those extremes and simply note the other. We live in the information age and propaganda is king, this technique of dismissing opposing viewpoints by invoking the magic words, "conspiracy theorist" lowers the level of discourse for all. True discussion does not rely on poisoning the well type techniques, but on the give and take of information judged on it's own merits.

occams razor doesn't exlude simple conspiracies.which is all most have to be.

a handful of powerful friends can fuck a lot of people over with very simple conspiracies like the one in the OP.

They can be as simple as"we don't want him to give evidence? You write an official letter accusing him of something, I'll have an aide make up some bullshit rumors and spread those around and we'll try to make sure the court case is over before he's sorted out the mess"

or even "fuck the law, make up some charge that's hard to defend yourself against then arrest him and throw him in jail"

But those kinds of stories are boring.massive conspiracies are hard to hold together but a few golf buddies can do fine.

Conspiracy nuts assume that the world trade centre was some kind of inside job with stupidly complex motives.In reality there's no need for that when the same ends can be achieved by a far simpler method of politicians simply taking advantage of the situation after the fact to push through whatever horrific measures they've always wanted.

the problem isn't a deficit of trust.Hell more problems are caused by trusting fools who believe campaign promises and press releases.

but i am saying not many people see the danger of being an untrusting fool

it is dangerous to intelligent perception to be fooled by someone

i am telling you it is equally dangerous to intelligent perception to be fooled by yourself, to believe what your imagination tells you, conspiracy theories, over what just might be true as presented to you

and untrusting fools are actually just as easily manipulated by lies and propaganda. just in a

Hate to tell you, but stuff like this goes on daily in the US. Yes, daily. Many times per day all over the US. It is not uncommon in the least. Seriously, spend some time on websites which center on police, courts, and protection of constitutional rights. On a daily basis you'll find judges looking the other way, DA's lying and even fabricating evidence, police murdering citizens without prosecution, illegal arrests, so on and so on. Seriously, the ACLU is completely useless. If you're donating to them, you

Seriously, the ACLU is completely useless. If you're donating to them, you are literally wasting your money.

That's at least partly because just like we have a war on SOME drugs, the ACLU is only interested in SOME rights. The other part is that not enough people are on board. And I would be, if they were interested in one specific right that I believe must be protected in order to protect the all other rights. I can see why they don't want to be conflated with it, but I disagree with them strongly enough to distrust them as a result.

oh I know it does, I don't even want to live in this country anymore. I'm quite embarrassed to be associated with a country that 75-85% of the people not only are completely ignorant of what goes on day to day, but defend to the death ideals that they believe are religiously inspired or generally inspired by a lack of logic. However, we also push all our idiotic shit to every country in the world with saber rattling and international intimidation.

However, we also push all our idiotic shit to every country in the world with saber rattling and international intimidation.

Nothing short of a violent bloody revolution would save this country, and yet I fear that if we had one we would almost certainly be left with a horrible dictatorship and be even worse off than things exist today. So I think this country is basically screwed.

You might find the documentaries described here [wikipedia.org] interesting.Particularly the third part, although parts 1 and 2 are also highly intriguing and the whole series IS connected.Last I checked they were available on Google Videos. [google.com]

Do you want me to factually correct every argument which you made which was completely and factually incorrect or do you want me to simply clarify where I said that a revolution is probably the only way to change things but also probably won't help. You somehow seemed to read that into "lets have a revolution". Your critical reading skills are lacking, fool.

I love how you think society is balanced when it has shown that disparity of wealth is wo

The way I'm reading this, it's possible that US prosecutors were probably to some degree duped as well. In a perfect world, the Cisco lawyers who instigates this would be disbarred, but it's pretty obvious from even the Canadian Crown Prosecutor that, at the prosecutorial end of things, nothing wrong was done.

Let's see what's wrong with your post. There's:19,414 Special Constables (think of these guys as anywhere between civilians sworn in, to guys retired but still working -- you get paid, just not much)11,834 Constables3,653 Corporals2,153 Sgt's950 Staff Sgt's.

That's your rank and file, these are the total number of officers that are responsible for law and order for 80% of the landmass of Canada(Ontario and Quebec have their own provincial police for this). And Newfoundland gets help from them still. Canad

Yeah, like they're going to pass legislation to change that, from the people that are all bought and paid for.

Any real change must come without their permission. That means "a big to-do". People are lazy though, so it would take a total crisis to get the ball rolling. That's not going to happen over something like this.

Go ahead and create a large group that can counter the power of the corporations. Call it a Conglomeration, or something. Watch it rise to power, supplanting the corporations, unions, churches, etc. Watch it get corrupted, and the country become for the Conglomeration, of the Conglomeration and by the Conglomeration.

Name a large group of people that had power that didn't abuse that power.

The ACLU isn't remotely crazy. They are focused on the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth amendments rather than the Second or Tenth, to be sure, and they take the absolute position on what "Congress shall make no law" is. That doesn't make them crazy. However, those who would like to get rid of those freedoms frequently portray them as crazy because they're a roadblock to their cause. For anyone who believes they're crazy, please present evidence of it, and I mean that absolutely seriously.

As far as government by, for, and of the corporations, that's been going on for at least 150 years now, and there's no reason to think it would stop anytime soon. If you want some idea of the history, I highly recommend A People's History of the United States [historyisaweapon.com].

The only problem with the ACLU is that they not only do not focus on the second amendment, they officially do not consider it to be a civil liberty.

It would be fine if they focused only on their specific issues, as there are other organizations dedicated to defending the second, but to deny that infringement on the second amendment is not a violation of civil liberties is wrong.

The only problem with the ACLU is that they not only do not focus on the second amendment, they officially do not consider it to be a civil liberty.

It would be fine if they focused only on their specific issues, as there are other organizations dedicated to defending the second, but to deny that infringement on the second amendment is not a violation of civil liberties is wrong.

I don't see it as a huge deal considering the NRA & CCRKBA both dwarf the ACLU in membership.

NRA = 4.3 million membersCCRKBA = 650000 members

ACLU = 500000 members

*using the numbers from each groups website.

Yeah it would be nice if the ACLU was for liberty across the board, but the way I figure it the more groups we have working towards these goals in total, the better off we are.

My "chief aversion" is the system of greed, private profit, privilege, and violence which makes up the control of the world today, and which has brought it the tragic crisis of unprecedented hunger and unemployment. I am opposed to the new deal [sic] because it strives to strengthen and prolong production for private profit. At bottom I am for conserving the full powers of every person on earth by expanding them to their individual limits. Therefore, I am for socialism, disarmament, and ultimately for abolishing the State itself as an instrument of property, the abolition of the propertied class and sole control by those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal. It sums up into one single purpose -- the abolition of the system dog-eat-dog under which we live, and the substitution by the most effective non-violence possible of a system of cooperative ownership and use of all wealth.

- Roger Nash Baldwin, founder of the ACLU.

Do you HONESTLY believe that they're really on about the things you think they are?

Yeah, I'm totally fine with an organization that started with that kind of talk, for a lot of reasons:1. I recognize that capitalist economics can and is used as a tool of oppression. I'm not as radical as Baldwin - I'm ok with a democratically elected government and the use of increase of wealth as a motivator for people to work. But like him, I'm not willing to allow pure capitalism to create a situation where workers are choosing between working at whatever rich people will pay, and dying of starvation, disease, or exposure to the elements.

2. He sees the US government as a tool of the megacorps of his day. He was generally right - this was at a time when people talking about forming trade unions were routinely attacked by police or arrested for saying that things would be much better if workers got together and demanded a 40 hour work week, safer working conditions, and enough pay to be able to feed their families.

3. Baldwin was talking in those terms when communists' primary goals were combating fascism in Europe and developing trade unions here in the US. He later revised his views on communism, notably in a 1953 article entitled "A new slavery; forced labor: the communist betrayal of human rights." which was largely about how Stalin in particular had undermined and betrayed everything communism was supposed to stand for.

4. Organizations change over time. To say the modern-day ACLU is mostly about Baldwin's socialism makes about as much sense as saying that the modern-day IBM is mostly about selling equipment to classify prisoners to the Nazis.

The US is too big to be a democracy in any meaningful sense. If the level of representation we have now was in effect during the early years of the country, they would have had a total of two representatives.

Its ideals are simply unreachable given the scale and nature of what this country has become. It may be possible to create new ideals, but we are still a bit too comfortable. And that is why corporations are able to pull the kind of nonsense that the story describes above: because as long people can buy

When will the American populace finally tire of the country being for the corporations, of the corporations, and by the corporations and take it for the people instead?

That won't be possible until we abolish political parties, especially the two-party bastardization that currently rules our politics. Right now, Democrat and Republican voters only vote to keep the other party's candidates out of office, and each party manages to focus its followers' vitriol on vapid inconsequentials. The party system is the linchpin that holds together our country's political corruption, and that holds voters in a drug-induced, hysterial hatred that prevents them from seeing the evil bei

I think you are underestimating the importance of some of the hot-ticket items that you are calling inconsequentials. While I agree that bullshit like Birthers and petty scandals are for entertainment value only, taxation, services, and social issues are at the heart of politics and are very important, even if the two sides seem to be acting childish about the whole thing.

but hate my government. "If it were possible, we would have no government. It is only for the protection of our rights that we resort to government at all." - Jefferson. Nowadays it seems the government is more interested in protecting the Non-human Corporations rather than the People.

Perhaps it is time to call a Constitutional Convention and revert to the Articles of Confederation again - a Union of States, rather than an out-of-control central authority that acts as if it has unbounded power.

State governments are surrounded by the People they govern. If a state government misbehaves, it only takes a short while to rally your neighbors and drive the 1-2 hours from your home to the capitol & remind the leaders that they can be deposed if they don't obey the citizens.

It is wiser to put most of the governmental power close to home, where the leaders are surrounded by their neighbors, rather than thousands of miles away in the Cone of Silence we call Washington. (Example: Three-quarter of the p

However, abuse of power by local governments is also limited in scale by nature of what they control. They can't ship off billions of dollars to some other place without a second thought because they don't have billions of dollars to begin with. They certainly can't do it without anyone noticing.

The US Federal Budget is massive, not just in the amount of money spent, but also in sheer verbiage. It's literally thousands of pages. There is no way I can review any part of that as a whole as a simple citize

The way to look at the federal budget is the Monthly Treasury Reports - http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/index.html [treas.gov] . They are much more concise and don't have all that useless airy-fairy language. They show the current month and the year to date. I don't think state budgets in general are less complicated. All budgets are hierarchical so it's just a question of how far down you want to drill. I bet even Wyoming's budget has more than an individual can wrap their head around if you break it down enough. Did tha

Perhaps it is time to call a Constitutional Convention and revert to the Articles of Confederation again - a Union of States, rather than an out-of-control central authority that acts as if it has unbounded power.

I want to write novels set in a dystopian future where corporations and drug gangs fight over the scraps of what's left worth having in the USA.

If national politics is a cesspool of corruption, graft and corporate kowtowing (and it is), then the states themselves are the water filling that cesspool. What do you think the weaker state governments will do? Corporations play hardball with states all the time. They ask for special laws, exceptions and tax breaks on the threat of crippling state economy by moving elsewhere. There is quite a bit of evidence that the recent "financial emergency powers" law in Michigan was written and pushed by a single co

I would imagine that an extradition request for a criminal complaint would have to come from the US Justice Department, perhaps even routed through the State Department. Random individuals can't ask governments to arrest people and ship them overseas. Random individuals can file suit in the other country and then that country can take steps as needed to keep the person there if warranted. In many countries however this would be inconvenient to a multinational - since they would be subject to loser-pays, security of costs, and all kinds of other things that they don't have to deal with in the US. And, of course, they have to convince the other country that they have jurisdiction.

'U.S. prosecutors acted outrageously'...
'The U.S. claimed'...
'U.S. prosecutors falsely portrayed'...
'left the U.S. in 2008 and was denied re-entry when he attempted to return to participate in the litigation'

Not only do they have more rights, but they have more money, are held to lower moral standards (if any), and can achieve far greater longevity than other "corporeal" beings if managed correctly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies) .

We've really gone to a "one dollar, one vote" system rather than one person, one vote. Of course, the rich and corporations win this hands down (and they keep "improving" the laws to increase their wealth)... I don't see any way for people to take back power.

It'll only take you five minutes. Get the email address for the other big ISP you don't use. (In Chicago, for example, if you use Comcast, email AT&T, if you use AT&T, email Comcast.) Tell them the reason you don't use them is that they use Cisco gear and that you don't support the supporters of corporate malfeasance. Tell them to email you when they've eliminated Cisco gear from their network.

You can protest to Cisco to change their ways all you like, and they won't give a crap. But if AT&T tells them to clean up their act, or QWEST, or Comcast or COX, etc, they'll listen.

Uh, so in my small-to-medium size business I won't touch overpriced cisco crap with a 10 foot pole. But compared to the telcos, I really don't have much traffic (or distance). Perhaps Juniper and F5 and Brocade have alternatives that match performance, but Cisco has huge market share and I doubt the three of those companies could take Cisco's place quickly if telcos started dumping Cisco stuff.

Plus, if you tell AT&T that you use Comcast because AT&T uses Cisco, I'd bet AT&T is well aware that Co

No surprise at the ruling -- why _wouldn't_ Cisco have a US govt Attorney in its' pocket? Why would a Fed respect the some foreign court any more than a US State court?

Having lived for multiple adult decades on both sides of the Canada-US border, I can say they might look alike and speak close to the same language, but the two nations are really very different:

The US is run by elected officals who are basically empowered uniquely by their election and feel they can do whatever they want, with highly variable respect for the US Constitution (some think it should be pushed, a few are very strict).

Canada is an elected dictatorship, basically devoid of checks and balances, with legislatures totally dependant on the executive, and highly subordinate courts. But they don't run the country, the civil service does and they are loyal to The Crown, notelected office-holders. There, something to offend everyone.

Of course there's lots of cross-over -- mostly by Canada picking up US institutions, like the Charter of Rights & Freedoms, and a Supreme Court that sometimes enforces it, "notwithstanding". The US Civil Service has also grown tremendously, and it rather tired of all the switching political appointees, so becomes more rule-bound and apolitical, where the armed services have led.

I can't comment on the accuracy of your statements about the US, but you've really lived in Canada? Are you sure? Did you actually study anything about our government or are you just making things up? Maybe you watched, read or listened to a particularly irritated political pundit?

Yes, lived there! I realize "elected dictatorship" is inflammatory, but there really is no other term applicable: Look at the _tremendous_ popular opposition to a number of measures (however logical and well-intentioned) to things like Joe Clarks Gasoline Tax and Brian Mulroney's GST (two decades apart). Sure, in both cases the electorate soundly thrashed the perps, but _note_: they were unrepealed when the opposition took power.

And do not tell me spectacles like UK's Tony Blair dragging the Labour MPs

Actually, by dint of being a parliamentary system modeled on the Westminster System, Canada really is much like an Executive-heavy government with almost no actual checks on it. While your Legislative branch controls the taxation, the Legislature is controlled by its party leadership to an extent that makes US party loyalty seem almost mercenary. And since the Executive comes from the Legislature, there is no other body that can threaten it with actual substantial actions, like refusing money for programs

And now, when claims were finally presented, they turned out to not have any merit. I am not surprised that they could not produce the evidence they claimed to have had. This is more of the same "government interference at the request of business" that we have been seeing a LOT of lately. Most of the time it has been the oil, GM foods, pharmaceutical and entertainment industries that pushed government into interfering with governments and affairs of other nations. Now it's Cisco... next, I suspect, it will be Microsoft. (After all, the EU is not quite done with Microsoft's legal cases...)

Canada now had additional reason not to trust in and support the US government or the US companies that influence Canadian law. I hope Canada and other countries wake up to this and stop bowing to US demands the way they have.

As a proud Canadian, I'd like to point out that we don't bow to American interests very often.

We're allies and good business partners, but we fight a lot over issues from softwood lumber to water usage to arctic ownership. On a diplomatic level, the US and Canada try to get along because its good for both our countries' interests, but on a nit-picking level, we certainly do not agree on everything.

"Canadian Justice Department lawyer Diba Majzub argued that it didn’t matter U.S. prosecutors falsely portrayed Adekeye as a Nigerian scofflaw who was a flight risk. He filed three thick volumes of legal precedent and emphasized that only five times since the current Extradition Act was enacted in 1999 has a judge sought to stay proceedings because of abuse of process. A stay required extraordinary misconduct, he said."

The government is becoming big business's puppet. If there is a law exists that pervents big business CEO from making bank, the law is changed or removed for them. *cough* Financial controls in the stock market *cough* Reminds me of Jefferson's quote before the Revolutionary War...
"And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms."

There will come a time when the nations of the world will cease to exist. When the anachronisms of state and country are finally crushed by the inexorable juggernaut of total corporate domination. When five monolithic Corporations are the new world powers. When the lives of billions are the sole property of the companies that employ them..

Prosecutors lament the CSI effect where juries are increasingly demanding physical forensic evidence before they will convict. They blame this entirely on the show, but it seems they need to also look in the mirror.

It seems we see more and more news stories where prosecutors, the DoJ, and police are caught purjuring themselves (but practically never being penalized for it). It seems likely that citizen jurors want more than their "good word" these days and CSI did nothing more than suggest to them what that

Cisco Systems orchestrated the arrest of Multiven founder Peter Alfred-Adekeye last year in order to force a settlement of Multiven's antitrust lawsuit against Cisco.

Multiven, sued Cisco in December 2008, accusing the company of monopolizing the business of servicing and maintaining Cisco enterprise equipment. Cisco forced owners of gear such as routers, switches and firewalls to buy its SMARTnet service contracts in order to get regular software updates and bug fixes, Multiven said. By providing updates and bug fixes only to SMARTnet customers and not to third parties, Cisco prevented independent companies from servicing its equipment, Multiven alleged.

The SMARTnet service is a hot-button issue with some customers, who feel that Cisco should provide basic bug fixes and software updates free of charge as Microsoft or Apple do.

On that topic, I don't like what I've heard about Cisco's update services, but there are so many other options out there that's it's really hard to feel bad for Cisco's customers. This isn't like smartphones, printers or telcos where you have to choose between a douche and a turd.

I guess the "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" attitude is a big part of it.

You imply that the system will ever be changed.: "We know what you did in Canada" is a bit like "Dmitry" or "rootkit" or "Room 641A" or "Costas Tsalikidis" or "Adamo Bove", Mr "national security issue" ect. people will recall for years and years.